Few jazz connoisseurs, if asked to name their six favorite white drummers, would name Ben Pollack among them, yet here was a musician who could lead a large band quite unobtrusively, with a fine steady propulsive beat that few drummers of either colour could match. He was born in Chicago on 22 June 1903, and learned to play drums while in high School. His first important work was with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, the pioneering band at the Friars Inn in Chicago in I923.